This slick little box looks like an E-ZPass turnpike toll transponder and hides up by your rearview mirror, but inside it you'll find all of the high-tech radar and laser detection of Escort's 9500ix dash-mounted detector. The SmartRadar unit also has the preprogrammed database of all the traffic cameras in the country, both the red-light cameras—sold to municipalities for a substantial cut of ticket revenue from motorists caught when yellow lights are too short—and speed cameras. The SmartRadar uses your iPhone or Android phone display to show speed gun proximity.

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2Escort SmartCord LIVE Smartphone Interface

Price: $99.95

Cops are known not to hang around the places on the highway where you'd normally slow down anyway, but to hide where the road is faster and your car is likely to creep above the posted limit. But drivers are beginning to use the power of crowd-sourcing to avoid these tricky speed traps.

If you've got a high-end detector like Escort's 9500ix, 8500 X50, or Redline, or Beltronics GX65, RX65, STi Driver, or Magnum, you can link your gadget to those owned by other motorists to create a network of info. Escort's detectors, for instance, can send a broadband signal to site operators in the company's Cincinnati headquarters that tells other Escort users around you where the cops have planted a trap. There's a simple piece of hardware involved, the SmartCord LIVE cord, which has a 12-volt plug with a built-in Bluetooth transmitter.

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3Cobra SLR 650G Color Screen Display

Price: $309.95

When dash-mounted radar detectors were introduced in the 1970s, there were only two microwave signals to receive: X-band and K-band. Detectors alerted drivers through a simple amber light and a dual-pitch beep. These days drivers need to see signal strength for four different manned threats—X, K, and Ka bands, and lidar (Light Detection and Ranging, also known as laser). In addition, there are unmanned threats such as speed cameras and red-light cameras. To more clearly display all these different incoming signals, Cobra has created a touch-point HD Color LCD screen that you can articulate toward the driver, and it also shows your car's speed at the time of the alert. Internal GPS knows how close you are to threats stored in an updatable and configurable memory.

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4Blinder HP-905 Compact Quad Sensor Laser Defense

Price: $899.00

The rise of lidar has taken the cops versus drivers cat-and-mouse game to a new level. Lidar, when used as a laser light detection and ranging device, is harder for drivers to beat than radar. For one thing, the laser light is undetectable until it's already registered on its target. And lidar guns are accurate enough to pick out a single car in a herd of traffic, while radar guns still scatter among multiple targets. Ultimately, lidar guns allow traffic cops more time to collect more tickets.

The motorist running with a herd of cars above the posted speed limit has one defense against getting unfairly singled out: fooling the lidar signal with your own blast of laser light, which is what this gizmo by Blinder purports to do. Nine states have so far outlawed using a laser device like the Blinder, which in its default mode operates as a harmless parking-assist range detector.

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5SCD2 Surveillance Camera Defense

Price: $799.95

Speed cameras and red-light cameras take photos of your car and its license plate if you're driving above the posted speed limit, or are still in an intersection when a traffic signal hits red. To get a clear image of your license plate number so a ticket can be mailed to you, the cameras use white or infrared flashes. The SCD2 from StopPhotoRadarNow.com detects the change in intensity from ambient light and briefly overlights your license plate, making it unreadable in the photo.

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6Dashtronix Detector Heads-Up Display

Price: $229.99

If you're driving with a Valentine One, an Escort 9500ix, or a Beltronics STiR Plus, you can make it display on a General Motors car's head-up dashboard and instrument panel display. GM cars like Camaros, Corvettes, Grand Prixs, Equinoxs, Cruzes, and HHRs are available with head-up displays, and can use the system with a simple plug-in box for the car's On-Board Diagnostics (OBD II) port.

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7Traffic Flow Signal Rejection False Signal Elimination

Price: Varies

Companies that provide information to some GPS navigation and congestion alert systems built into cars use radar signals triggered at steady intervals to measure traffic density. These signals can trigger an average radar detector with annoying repetition. With TFSR, your detector can reject these signals, so you won't think there's a cop where there isn't one. Escort, Beltronics, Cobra, Whistler, and K40 detectors all filter these nuisances out.

Lots of other services share the radio frequencies used by radar, such as door-openers and proximity alarms, and that leads to a lot of detectors crying wolf. To minimize the noise, you can program the K40, Valentine, and Whistler AXIS detectors to go mute when you're cruising around at slow speeds in places where there are a lot of door openers and no open highways. The mute happens automatically in all of these units below a set speed.

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9Stalker Spectre Elite Radar Detector Detectors

Price: $2000

This one is just for the cops: Because radar detectors are illegal for commercial truckers to use, as well as for regular motorists in Virginia, D.C., and eastern Canada, cops will use so-called detector detectors to find vehicles with radar detectors in operation. These radar detector detectors, such as the $2000 Stalker Spectre Elite, look for leaking intermediate-frequency signals that low-end radar detectors emit. High-end radar detectors, however, use antenna configurations and metal shielding to cloak themselves in invisibility. In fact, the Beltronics STi Magnum has a sealed magnesium case just for this purpose, should you drive into Virginia or Canada and forget to turn off the detector.

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